Sarah Silverman is "all over the place" and "I apologize."

Listen to the "Israel-Hamas Mini Episode" of her podcast. She lets you see her jumbled thoughts in motion. 

She expresses surprise to hear anti-semitism coming from the left. She'd been thinking the left is her side. But she can't really be surprised. 

Then there's Ezra Klein's podcast episode, "Israel Is Giving Hamas What It Wants." It's much less personally expressive, but it's a similarly jumbled set of statements from someone who is Jewish and feels called to align with the left. 

"I think we’re just communicating wrong, because, like, what I know 'woke' to mean is, like, learning new things about people or the world..."

"... and then acting accordingly. Like, basic kindness. Maybe a gesture of care to people who are more vulnerable than you. You know what, actually you wouldn’t like it — it’s Jesus stuff...."

 
Said Sarah Silverman, guest hosting on "The Daily Show," quoted in the NYT.

Interesting clothes and hair, by the way. I guess it's a comic "newsperson" getup. It fixes your attention and makes it strangely hard to think.

"When I first started comedy, my male comic friends would say, 'You have to focus on making the men laugh. The women only laugh if their date laughs.'"

Said Sarah Silverman, quoted in "For Female Comics, Peak TV Has Its Troughs" (NYT)... which is mostly about Kate Micucci, who you may know from Garfunkel and Oates. Lots of their videos at YouTube. Seems like everyone watched this one 7 years ago:



And here's one with over 13 million views (careful, it's a little disturbing):

What Sarah Silverman said about how different she was from those other women in front of whom Louis C.K. masturbated.

New York Magazine sums it up. Let me see if I can make it even more concise:

1. Silverman told Howard Stern, "I’m not making excuses for [Louis C.K.]... But, you know, we are peers, we are equals. When we were kids, and he used to ask if he could masturbate in front of me, sometimes I’d go, 'Fuck yeah I want to see that!"

2. Silverman said she was not like "the other women who are talking about what he did to him" because the 2 of them were equals: "He could offer me nothing. We were only just friends."

3. One of those "other women," Rebecca Corry, said: "To be real clear, CK had 'nothing to offer me' as I too was his equal."

4. Now, I think that raises the question why didn't Corry just leave if there wasn't something she wanted from him or some power he held over her, but Silverman didn't go in that direction. She took the much safer route of being super-nice to Corry: "Rebecca I’m sorry. Ugh this is why I don’t like weighing in. I can’t seem to do press 4 my show w/out being asked about it. But you’re right- you were equals and he fucked with you and it’s not ok. I’m sorry, friend. You are so talented and so kind."

5. I don't know whether Silverman is still in trouble, but her effort to help rehabilitate her friend — who she says she "loves" and sees as a "brother" — got stalled.

It's the Era of That's Not Funny.

Some people are hot to destroy all the comedians who made us laugh by shocking us with their transgressions. I see Sarah Silverman is on the chopping block for tweeting, "Hey, is it considered molestation if the child makes the first move? I'm gonna need a quick answer on this." That was back in '09, when Obama was President, and people got the idea of a comedian posing as evil and not actually being evil. There was a word for it back in the old days. A "joke,"* we called it.

I was just by chance paging through a book written by one of our all-time greatest comedians, George Carlin, and I ran across this:




The book is "Napalm and Silly Putty." The publication date is telling: July 1, 2001. Wait 2 months and 10 days and nothing will ever be funny again. Or at least that's what I, personally, thought on the morning of September 11th. And then I heard myself make a joke: "I guess we don't have to talk about Chandra Levy anymore."

__________________

* "Something said or done to excite laughter or amusement; a witticism, a jest; jesting, raillery...." (OED).

1670 J. Eachard Grounds Contempt of Clergy 34 To have the right knack of letting off a Joque, and of pleasing the Humsters....
1748 S. Richardson Clarissa VI. liii. 210 I..should not forbear to cut a joke, were I upon the scaffold....
1790 J. Beattie Elem. Moral Sci. I. i. i. 117 The practice of turning every thing into joke and ridicule is a dangerous levity of imagination.

Yes, and the practice of turning everything into a nonjoke is a dangerous gloominess of imagination.

"Humsters" in case you are wondering are people who express approval by humming. It's an obsolete word, and who needs it? Not until we revive the practice of expressing approval by humming.

[The ethnomusicologist] Joseph Jordania suggested that humming could have played an important role in the early human (hominid) evolution as contact calls. Many social animals produce seemingly haphazard and indistinct sounds (like chicken cluck) when they are going about their everyday business (foraging, feeding). These sounds have two functions: (1) to let group members know that they are among kin and there is no danger, and (2) in case of the appearance of any signs of danger (suspicious sounds, movements in a forest), the animal that notices danger first, stops moving, stops producing sounds, remains silent and looks in the direction of the danger sign. Other animals quickly follow suit and very soon all the group is silent and is scanning the environment for the possible danger. Charles Darwin was the first to notice this phenomenon on the example of the wild horses and the cattle. Joseph Jordania suggested that for humans, as for many social animals, silence can be a sign of danger, and that's why gentle humming and musical sounds relax humans (see the use of gentle music in music therapy, lullabies).

Is Sarah Silverman trolling this troll... doing some weird comedy performance...

... or is she somehow suddenly the most calm and compassionate person on earth celebrity?

I believe in you. I read ur timeline & I see what ur doing & your rage is thinly veiled pain. But u know that. I know this feeling. Ps My back Fucking sux too. see what happens when u choose love. I see it in you.

— Sarah Silverman (@SarahKSilverman) December 29, 2017

Read how it goes from there.

Violent ideation from Sarah Silverman.

This is an actual tweet from the once seemingly smart comedienne:

'WAKE UP & JOIN THE RESISTANCE. ONCE THE MILITARY IS W US FASCISTS GET OVERTHROWN. MAD KING & HIS HANDLERS GO BYE BYE,' Silverman wrote.

Later she added: 'We're all gonna die sounds so dire but we are though (all gonna die).'

IN THE COMMENTS: PB says:

Comedienne? when was she ever funny?

Darrell says:

Woman are smart and funny. Deal with it.

Heh. I get it:

Does the girl need Daddy to carry her?

That's the image from the other side of the Atlantic, at BBC. The carry-me quote, the "girl" with wide-stretched, up-reaching arms, gazing gleefully into the face of the man she expects to pick her up.

What an image, acknowledging Hillary's inability to make it on her own. Was last April's Boston Marathon stuck in the speechwriters' mind?



The actual quote — I don't know why nonquotes are put in quotes — is "And we’re going to carry Hillary to victory this fall, because that’s what the moment demands." And let's put it in context.

Here's the whole Obama speech. I'm copying 2 paragraphs worth, with the quote in boldface, and I'm going to pick through this pretty closely. There's a lot going on here:

Look, Hillary’s got her share of critics. She’s been caricatured by the right and by some folks on the left; accused of everything you can imagine – and some things you can’t. 

What is it we can't imagine? I'm having a hard time imagining that — even imagining what the criticism was. What does that refer to? That line forced me to try to think of something, and what came up in my head was: destroying women that Bill Clinton had sex with. Or, second, murdering Vince Foster.

But she knows that’s what happens when you’re under a microscope for 40 years. She knows she’s made mistakes, just like I have; just like we all do. 

So the criticisms of Hillary are just the same things that would be thrown at anybody in public life. It's only because we looked hard — like with a microscope or something? — that we saw things, but you'd see a festering infection if you looked with a microscope at anybody.

That’s what happens when we try. 

She tried. And look what you get when you try!

That’s what happens when you’re the kind of citizen Teddy Roosevelt once described – not the timid souls who criticize from the sidelines, but someone “who is actually in the arena…who strives valiantly; who errs…[but] who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement.” 

The arena! By the way, can Donald Trump get in on this kind of sympathetic reading? He's hurled himself into the arena, striven valiantly, made some errors — a bankruptcy here and there, a Trump University fraudlette. He's not the timid soul. And in the end, high achievement. But Hillary, she's like Teddy Roosevelt, the valiant striver in the arena. Up for a big fight:



Heh. Did you know that's what "The Arena" looks like today? That's a video that went up a month ago and has over 6 million views. It begins with the TR quote, so I assume the speechwriters got it there. I invite you to try to imagine — as we're talking about things that can't be imagined — Teddy Roosevelt striving in that arena. Let me just lace up my ballet shoes.

Back to Obama's speech:

Hillary Clinton is that woman in the arena. She’s been there for us – even if we haven’t always noticed. And if you’re serious about our democracy, you can’t afford to stay home just because she might not align with you on every issue. 

That's the theme of the convention, you know. You don't like her, but tough. Grow up and do what you've got to do. This is serious. Forget about enjoying this encounter. Don't be ridiculous, you big baby. Put some ice cream on it. Do what you're supposed to....

You’ve got to get in the arena with her, because democracy isn’t a spectator sport. America isn’t about “yes he will.” It’s about “yes we can.”

He reminds us of his greatest hit...

And we’re going to carry Hillary to victory this fall, because that’s what the moment demands.

And Daddy picks up the little girl. 

"To the Bernie-or-bust people: You're being ridiculous."

Let's talk about what Sarah Silverman said. Here's my set of observations:

1. Silverman was not calling all Bernie people ridiculous, only the "Bernie or bust" people — only those who are so dedicated to a lost dream that they won't see the clear task at hand and do what needs to be done.

2. Silverman was ad libbing, not following a script. She and Al Franken had been told to stretch it, because for some reason the next person — it turned out to be Paul Simon — was not yet ready to take the stage. So we got something actually spontaneous. That's refreshing. Interestingly, it's something Donald Trump does all the time: Come out with unscripted expressions of his reaction to what's happening in the room right now. The attention to Silverman's remark gives some insight into why Trump has had such an effect on so many people.

3. Silverman's remark also hit people in an emotional place, I believe. Maybe not for everyone or quite in the same way, but what I think happened was: She assumed authority as the woman who can tell you what you need to be to measure up socially. If you've been caring about social acceptance and being part of the group — and maybe you've been feeding off of a communal feeling of being in the Bernie crowd — you're suddenly taken aback and warned that you could lose your inclusion. The people who matter think you are an embarrassment and you might find yourself, once again, on the outside. The meaning in life that you found with the Bernie people could be lost if you don't shape up and act the way The Lady says you must act.

4. The downside of her remark is this: The Bernie people — some/many of them — had been having a deep personal experience of awakening into and living in idealism. Something amazing and spiritually rewarding seemed to be happening to them. A wide world of potential seemed to be opening up. And now they are brought up short as Sarah tells them what felt real to them is just a childish thing that needs to be put aside. Join the real world, you starry eyed fools. So all that idealism, what was it? Were we chumps to believe? Were we exploited all along for our propensity to believe? And now you insist that we believe something else? Why? If we were a bubble and you popped the bubble, what are we now? Nothing! And Sarah's beautiful face morphs into the face of the witch who's been horrifying us all this time and she's laughing at us...



5. As noted at #2, the need for the stretching occurred because Paul Simon wasn't coming out on cue. Why would an old performer — one with much experience at live shows — have difficulty getting out there? Look at him and ask yourself what went wrong:



Maybe he didn't want to do it. He was for Bernie. He gave his beautiful song "America" to Bernie to use in the best (save one) political ad I've ever seen. Maybe Paul was close to being Bernie-or-bust and was busting back stage. But it wandered out eventually and struggled through that song that's not really written for his voice, but for Art's. Maybe he didn't want to lay himself down as a bridge — a bridge to Hillary. That's not the lofty spiritual destination over the bridge in that song. How, after all these years can he give that song to her? What a pale, debased repeat of giving "America" to Bernie! Ah, poor Paul! How dreary and sad the song sounded. Nothing like the exquisite inspiration of "America" given to Bernie. In the comments, coupe had said: "Bernie's not an idiot. He has millions of dollars in outstanding campaign bills to pay off. He's going to say whatever is necessary to get the DNC and Clinton to pay them off." And Meade wrote this parody of Paul Simon's "America":

"Let's not be suckers, we’ll marry extortions together
I’ve got some emails right here in my bag"
So you'll pay all of my campaign debts and I'll buy your Wall Street lies
And we'll walk off and sell out America

6. Proofreading, I'm surprised to see I wrote "it wandered out eventually." Ah, poor Paul! Drained of his soul! Ah, poor Bernie people, drained of their soul! Your soul was just something The Party was using until it became an inconvenient encumbrance. Shed it now. You look ridiculous.

"That's a $500,000 vagina tax."

(Warning: Rubber penises that have kind of a sourdough smell are displayed and waggled about in this video.)



Reparations, baby. And we've got a number. None of this Ta-Nehisi Coates we-can-figure-out-the-number-later business. The number is $30 trillion. Pony up!

Sarah Silverman as Joan Rivers on "Saturday Night Live."

From last night's show:

[EMBEDDED VIDEO REMOVED]

And, yes, all the tags for this post are correct.

AND: Even better is the trailer for "The Fault in Our Stars 2: The Ebola in Our Everything."

When "progressive pop culture people" make fun of a woman for being old...

... and the woman is Sarah Silverman, who's 42, Sarah has something to say about it:

"I’ve got other things to do, and I don’t have it in me to be a good enough mother to a fifth child."

"I delight in newborn babies with their delicate weightlessness, the curl of their small fingers around my thumb, but the best thing about them now is that they belong to other people. I don’t want to bear them, feed them, bring them up, be responsible for them."

A woman, Susan Heath, writing in the present tense, describes her feelings about getting an abortion she had 34 years ago.  Now, she says, "I don’t have and never have had a single qualm about not bringing that child into the world. I know many women who have grieved greatly over the children they decided not to have, and I am thankful to have been spared that agonizing sadness of guilt and regret. I also know many women who, like me, have felt only gratitude and relief at having been able to take control over their lives safely and legally."

For a less sententious application of literary talent to the topic of abortion, check out comedienne Sarah Silverman: "Got a quickie aborsh in case R v W gets overturned" — tweeted, with pics of the actually-not-pregnant Silverman pushing out her abdomen and then sucking it way in, before-and-after style.

I take it Silverman's view of abortion is just about exactly the same as Heath's: That abortion should be legal and that women really do think carefully before getting an abortion. That's how I read the comedy and the precious, serious — curled-tiny-fingers — writing.

2 writing styles. Do you have a preference?